Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The presence of two S-layer-protein-encoding genes is conserved among species related to Lactobacillus acidophilus

1996; Microbiology Society; Volume: 142; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1099/00221287-142-9-2375

1465-2080

Hein J. Boot, Carin P.A.M. Kolen, Bruno Pot, K. Kersters, Peter H. Pouwels,

Probiotics and Fermented Foods

Previously we have shown that the type strain of Lactobacillus acidophilus possesses two S-protein-encoding genes, one of which is silent, on a chromosomal segment of 6 kb. The S-protein-encoding gene in the expression site can be exchanged for the silent S-protein-encoding gene by inversion of this slp segment. In this study the presence of S-protein and corresponding S-protein-encoding genes of strains belonging to species that are closely related to L. acidophilus was determined. All strains investigated were identified by numerical comparison of highly standardized one-dimensional SDS-PAGE whole-cellular-protein patterns. Western blot and Southern blot methods were used to identify the presence of, and homology between, S-proteins and S-protein-encoding genes. From these analyses we conclude that strains of L. acidophilus, L. crispatus, L. amylovorus and L. gallinarum possess an S-layer and contain two slp genes. Strains of L. helveticus possess an S-layer but have only one intact slp gene. Strains of L. gasseri, L. johnsonii and L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus have neither an S-layer nor S-protein-encoding genes hybridizing with probes derived from the L. acidophilus slpA or slpB region. The presence of a highly conserved 5′ region in the slp genes of strains of L. acidophilus, L. crispatus, L. amylovorus and L. gallinarum suggests that S-layer variation is a common feature for strains of these species.